Political prisoner Andrzej Paczobut has covid, needs urgent hospital care

Andrzej Pac­zobut has got Codid in Zhodz­i­na jail, he man­aged to pass the news to his fam­i­ly through his cell­mates.

Accord­ing to his wife, Andrzej is weak, cough­ing, los­ing ener­gy, but has got no med­ical care as the jail has no hos­pi­tal ward. His fam­i­ly is wor­ried about the health of the polit­i­cal pris­on­er, because he has irreg­u­lar heart beat. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he fre­quent­ly lost con­scious­ness.

Aksana knows that Andrzej is now kept in an over­crowd­ed cell, with 13 peo­ple inside. The cell is stuffy, with bad air, and lice. Aksana believes that Andrei’s con­di­tion could dete­ri­o­rate due to the heat which is not good for peo­ple with heart dis­eases.

The jail admin­is­tra­tion made an excep­tion for Pac­zobut and allowed him to lie on his bunk for 2 hours a day. He is sup­posed to either stand or walk for the rest of the day. We’ve got repeat­ed reports from polit­i­cal pris­on­ers that they get a «spe­cial treat­ment» in jail: they are not allowed to sit or lie from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Andrzej Pac­zobut is 48. He lives in Hrod­na. He and his wife Aksana have two chil­dren, elder daugh­ter study­ing med­i­cine in Hrod­na, and younger son is in sec­ondary school.  Andrzej is well-known jour­nal­ist and pub­lic fig­ure, a mem­ber of the unreg­is­tered Union of Poles in Belarus. He joined the pro­fes­sion in 2002.

On March 25, 2021 Pac­zobut was detained, and his home was searched.  He is charged under the «Pol­ish case», opened for «incit­ing reli­gious and nation­al hatred» (Arti­cle 130 part 3 of the Crim­i­nal Code) against Anzha­li­ka Borys and oth­er mem­bers of the Union of Poles. Andrzej is in Zhodz­i­na jail now.

Mem­bers of the unreg­is­tered Union of Poles in Belarus Ire­na Bernatskaya, Maria Tsishk­ouskaya, and Han­na Pan­isha­va were released in May and sent out of the coun­try.  The crim­i­nal charges against them are not dropped, and they are liv­ing in Poland now. Only Pac­zobut and Borys remain in jail in this case.